Apple Number One for a Long Time, Says Angry Birds Developer

In the last few weeks, many pundits have predicted that 2011 will be the year that Google’s Android explodes in popularity -- but at least one major iPhone game developer is planning to keep most of its eggs in Apple’s basket, so to speak.

AppleInsider is reporting that an executive at Angry Birds developer Rovio Mobile claims that Apple will continue to be the number one platform for a long time. Calling the Android platform “fragmented,” Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka told Tech ’N Marketing this week that Apple has nothing to fear and they’ll continue to be the number one platform for developers.

Rovio’s Angry Birds has become something of a phenomenon in iOS gaming. Despite a slow start after its release a year ago, the title has since reached a whopping 50 million downloads across all platforms and remained in the number one spot on the App Store “longer than anybody else,” according to Vesterbacka.

Angry Birds isn’t just a success on iOS -- the title also made the leap to Android, but Vesterbacka clearly feels the future is still with Apple. “Apple will be the number one platform for a long time from a developer perspective,” Rovio’s “Mighty Eagle” answered when asked how he viewed the future of mobile operating systems. “They have gotten so many things right, and they know what they are doing and they call the shots.”

Vesterbacka cites Android’s fragmentation problem as not a device issue, but one that endangers the entire ecosystem. “Android is growing, but it’s also growing complexity at the same time,” the executive reveals. “Device fragmentation is not the issue, but rather the fragmentation of the ecosystem.”

Angry Birds launched on Android back in November but was initially plagued with problems, which Vesterbacka apologized for. “Despite our efforts, we were unsuccessful in delivering optimal performance,” Rovio said at the time.

Perhaps the biggest difference between iOS and Android is that Angry Birds is a free, ad-supported app on Google’s platform, versus a paid app on Apple’s. Vesterbacka calls it “the Google way,” claiming “paid content just doesn’t work on Android.”

For this and many other reasons, Vesterbacka sees the future in Apple, concluding “nobody else will be able to build what Apple has built, there just isn’t that kind of market power out there.”

Comment

So, the Mighty Eagle (Peter Vesterbacka's nickname at Rovio) says Angry Birds want those "Golden Eggs" direct from consumers (Apple), not from Advertisers (Google), though getting the eggs from them is OK for the moment.